Disaster at Stalingrad

by Peter G. Tsouras

  Nevertheless, the loss of Western aid was having a rippling effect. The number and strength of units being deployed for Uranus was not what had been planned, and now the date of the attack had been advanced by almost three weeks. The cut-off of aluminium from the West reduced tank and aircraft engine production by half. Food was not as plentiful. Lieutenant Hersch Gurewicz was one of those men brought out of Stalingrad to take part in the offensive. Given his first can of spam, he thought that the bloodbath in the city had a reason if the Soviet Union was actually getting help. Then the mess sergeant told him, ‘Enjoy it, lieutenant, that’s the last of it.’

  Kotelnikovo, 24 October 1942

  Tresckow realized that he could have talked himself blue in the face and still would not have convinced the commander of Army Group B to commit himself to treason. His visit to army group headquarters had been ostensibly for operational discussions, but the removal of Hitler was uppermost in his mind. Stauffenberg had been pressing him to continue to work for the field marshal’s support. The two young officers had been unexpectedly successful in placing sympathizers in critical positions, but Manstein was the key. Without him, success was problematical.

  Tresckow realized that despite Manstein’s continuous expressions of contempt for the GroFaZ within his own small circle, he would not lift his hand against the man who was destroying Germany. The field marshal had taught his little dachshund to lift its tiny paw in a mockery of the Hitler salute, but that was about as far as he was willing to go. Tresckow had even recommended his nephew, Lieutenant Alexander von Stahlberg, to replace Manstein’s wounded aide, hoping he might persuade him to come around, but although the two were to develop a mutual respect and devotion, the field marshal remained unconvinced.16

  Still Tresckow persisted but only succeeded in making the field marshal more obdurate. ‘Listen, Tresckow, Prussian field marshals do not mutiny. And do not bring up Tauroggen. Stauffenberg already tried that.’

  ‘But, Herr Feldmarschall…’

  ‘No, you listen. I am responsible for an army group in the field, and I do not feel I have the right to contemplate a coup d’état in wartime. It would lead to chaos inside Germany. I must also consider my oath and the admissibility of murder for political objectives.’17

  Tresckow responded, ‘Do you really think that you are bound by an oath to the anti-Christ? The Evil One is surely enjoying the trick we have played upon ourselves. Once our personal oath was given to the kings of Prussia and the German emperors, men of Christian honour. It has been perverted by Hitler and put at the service of unspeakable crimes.’18

  Clearly Manstein did not want to hear this. He had his back up now. ‘No senior military commander can for years on end expect his soldiers to lay down their lives for victory and then precipitate defeat by his own hand.’ He looked pointedly at his guest. ‘Besides, I do not think events have reached the stage where such action is necessary.’

  He got up and went over to the map. ‘Let’s get to the business at hand.’ He pointed to the 6th Army rear between Stalingrad and Kalach:

  I’m more and more worried about the Don flank to the north. If I leave the panzer corps in the city fighting, they will be ground to nothing and useless for manoeuvre on the flanks. Already they are badly understrength. I want Seydlitz to pull out his XIV Panzer Corps [3rd and 60th Motorized, 16th Panzer] and place them in reserve near Kalach.19 I want XLVIII Panzer Corps [14th and 24th Panzer Divisions] pulled out of the city as well.

  The 29th Motorized Division had already been pulled out as an army group reserve, brought up to strength, and readied for an attack on Astrakhan, another one of Hitler’s ideas. This was before Kleist’s 1st Panzer Army began its drive on the city. Manstein smacked the map at a place called Yeriko-Krepinski, the rail station 25 miles southwest of the city. ‘Concentrate them here.’20

  Tresckow was taken aback. ‘Hitler will immediately countermand the order.’

  ‘Then we won’t tell him — yet.’ The younger man realized with a shock that this was the first time Manstein had actually disobeyed the Führer.

  The rains had stopped. Outside it was snowing. The ground was freezing.

  Astrakhan, 25 October 1942

  Rudel’s Stukas hung over the city, diving again and again to strike its oil tanks and shipping. Huge clouds of smoke from the burning oil roiled into the sky. The flames were consuming the last of the oil shipped by sea from the Baku fields. Kleist’s panzers were fewer than 20 miles from the city. It was a rich prize, a combination of rail hub and river- and sea-port. Its loss would cripple much of the ability of the Soviets to draw on the resources of Central Asia and western Siberia. Yet nature had provided a defence for the city. It was not located on the Caspian shore but rather many miles inland amid the vast Volga delta, surrounded by the numerous channels of that mighty river. Defending the city was 28th Army with almost 35,000 men and 60 tanks. Originally scheduled to reinforce Stalingrad Front, this army was going to have its hands full defending Astrakhan.

  Werewolf, Vinnitsa, 26 October 1942

  Hitler had been beside himself with self-righteous delight at the fall of the Caucasus — a victory that his generals had done their best to persuade him not to attempt. Once again, he told the OKW staff, it was his understanding of the economic aspects of war that had guided the road to this splendid victory. Once again, his intuition and will had trumped all the arid professionalism of his generals. Now that Astrakhan was on the point of falling, he began to count all the economic resources and military booty.

  Manstein encouraged him in this distraction because it gave him the cover to concentrate German theatre resources in the decisive battle. He shook his head when he thought how lucky Army Group A had been to subdue the Caucasus and Transcaucasus. He had certainly thought it would be a mountain pass too far. By all the rules of war, the campaign should have bogged down and thus dissipated German forces too much to concentrate decisively anywhere. The field marshal had to conclude that it was only some sort of miracle of the sort the devil seemed to favour Hitler with that had brought such a victory. But just when he had thought that he could count on Kleist’s 1st Panzer Army in the final showdown on the Volga, Hitler had insisted that it seize Astrakhan instead.

  He would throw a sop to the Führer but still concentrate most of 1st Panzer Army for the counterstroke to the Soviet offensive he knew was coming. Gehlen kept insisting that the heavier blow was aimed at Army Group Centre. Be that as it may, Manstein was certain that Kluge was not nearly in so dangerous a situation as Army Group B.

  He had sent a staff officer by aircraft with his oral order to Kleist to leave the Turkish corps of former Soviet POWs to invest Astrakhan. It was an act of supreme ruthlessness. He knew they stood little chance against the Soviet 28th Army, but all he needed them to do was divert the enemy and buy him time. The remaining panzer, infantry and Gebirgsjäger corps were to cross the Volga north of Astrakhan and strike northwest parallel to the river in the direction of Stalingrad.

  Manstein knew that his callous treatment of the former Soviet POWs fighting for the Germans would appeal to Hitler and smooth the way for what he wanted to do in any case. He might not have been as forthcoming had he not needed Hitler’s approval of supporting 1st Panzer Army by air in its long dash from Astrakhan to Stalingrad. He needed Goring’s Ju 52 transports. To his relief, Hitler jumped at the idea of taking Stalingrad from the rear, and to his surprise Goring was eager to throw the resources of the Luftwaffe into the effort. He realized this was the opportunity for him to make a decisive contribution to the victory.

  Stalingrad, 28 October 1942

  The patrol dragged in the German prisoner with a potato sack over his head. He could not wait to talk. The news that had run through the 6th Army was that the greatest sniper in the Wehrmacht, Major König, head of the sniper school itself, had been summoned to kill the Soviet ‘head rabbit’, a play on Zaitsev’s name, which meant hare. Colonel Batyuk took Zaitsev aside, ‘So now you’ve got to elimin
ate this super-sniper. But be careful and use your head.’

  It did not take Zaitsev long to realize he was, indeed, up against a super-sniper. Reports began to come in of one Soviet sniper after another being shot. These were experienced men, not beginners. The deaths surged along the entire front. This Major König was ranging wide, giving no indication of where he might show up. Zaitsev was truly puzzled:

  For a long time… the characteristics of this new super-sniper remained difficult for me to identify. Our daily observations provided us nothing useful, and we could not pinpoint what sector he was in. He must have been changing his position frequently, and searching me out as carefully as I was in searching for him.21

  Ironically Pohl was thinking almost exactly the same thing about Zaitsev. The army’s propaganda unit had begun to copy the Soviet practice of showing how many of the enemy the major had shot by prominently displaying a hammer and sickle with an x drawn over it for each kill. It had a great effect along the firing line. Germans were now shouting over to the Soviets about how long it would be before König bagged Zaitsev. That was punctuated by the four or five Red Army men that the major was picking off each day, usually officers and forward observers. Even Chuikov became concerned and urged Zaitsev on.

  Kotelnikovo, Army Group B Headquarters, 30 October 1942

  That morning Manstein received the news of the death in combat of his older son, Gero, who had fallen while assigned to his father’s old division. It was as if someone had struck him in his soul. His grief was intense, of the kind that Herodotus had written of two and a half thousand years before. In peace sons bury their fathers, but in war it is the fathers who bury their sons.

  As men stricken with such a numbing loss do, he spoke of Gero the boy in his sweet innocence. He spoke of how frail Gero had been as a child and the efforts his wife had made to build his strength. ‘We made no attempt to influence his choice of profession, but he was drawn to the calling of his ancestors. It was simply in his blood to become a regular officer.’ The most poignant lines of Manstein’s later war memoirs were of his son.

  There was not a single flaw in this boy’s make-up. Modest, kind, ever eager to help others, at once serious-minded and cheerful, he had no thought for himself, but knew only comradeship and charity. His mind and spirit were perpetually open to all that is fine and good. It was his heritage to come from a long line of soldiers; but by the very fact of being an ardent German soldier he was at once a gentleman in the truest sense of the word — a gentleman and a Christian.22

  As soon as the word spread through the headquarters, Tresckow flew down from Stalingrad immediately and called on his old master to offer his condolences:

  I know that it may be of little comfort now, but Gero’s life is an example to us all, especially we older men. I cannot but think that he would agree with me that when I go before God to account for what I have done and left undone, I know I will be able to justify what I did in the struggle against Hitler.

  Manstein was shaken from his grief by Tresckow’s linking of his son and Hitler. The younger man went on:

  God promised Abraham that He would not destroy Sodom if just ten Gerichten [righteous men] could be found in the city, and so I hope that for our sake God will not destroy Germany… A man’s moral worth is established only at the point where he is ready to give up his life in defence of his convictions.23

  Manstein was getting angry, but Tresckow did not relent:

  Tell me, Herr Feldmarschall, do you doubt that Gero would have been one of those ten righteous men? If so, then how could you not join him in that righteousness?24

  It was a discouraged Tresckow who returned to 6th Army headquarters that night. The signals NCO brought him a message and said, ‘This arrived from the army group commander while you were in the air, sir.’

  Tresckow signed. What now, he thought? He read and at first could not believe. It said, ‘Count me among the righteous. Manstein.’

  CHAPTER 13

  Der Totenritt bei Leninsk

  Along the northern Don River, 1 November 1942

  The Romanian 3rd Army was strung out thinly along the northern arm of the Don River and huddled in the morning cold. It was badly armed and worse commanded by officers who thought bullying and screaming were the sum of leadership. Then a short but crushing artillery strike hit them. Almost immediately 500 tanks of 5th Tank and 21st Armies of General N. F. Vatutin’s Southwest Front hit. They came out of the morning mist followed by waves of infantry. The Romanians had already been half-beaten men. The first blow from Operation Uranus finished the job. Their army quickly came apart surviving as little more than a flag on a map at OKW. The Italian 8th Army to the west was being fixed in place by the 1st Guards Army. The Italians would be of no help to their fellow Latins.

  To the east Colonel General K. K. Rokossovsky’s 65th, 24th and 66th Armies of the Don Front attacked 6th Army’s I and XI Corps. Understrength and spread thinly along terrain difficult to defend, they were soon fighting for their lives. Stalin had a special regard for this general of whom he said, ‘I have no Suvorov, but Rokossovsky is my Bagration’, alluding to one of the great Suvorov’s exemplary disciples.

  Zhukov was everywhere, urging the commanders forward. He was optimistic because there were no German units, especially panzers, to corset up the Romanians. That would have held things up, a special worry since the attack was not as strong as had been hoped. Zhukov would have given anything for another three weeks to prepare. Already the reequipment of Soviet tank units with T-34s had slowed because of the shortage of aluminium for their engines. The Red Air Force was also feeling the same problem. As it was, the ground forces employed for the overall operation included only 71 per cent of the men and 79 per cent of the tanks originally planned. Zhukov had also warned his commanders that fuel was in short supply and that enemy fuel dumps were critical objectives.1

  As soon as the seriousness of the Soviet attack had been confirmed, Seydlitz ordered Operation Quicksilver executed. It would be the most difficult of all manoeuvres, to retreat while still in contact with the enemy. He thanked God that Manstein had ordered the concentration of his XIV Panzer Corps in his rear near Kalach.2

  That was not doing the Germans west of the Don crossing at Kalach any good. Fifth Tank Army’s spearheads knifed down through 6th Army’s line of communications. T-34s surged over the tracks of the single rail line supporting 6th Army, savaged truck convoys and overran supply dumps and maintenance yards. The tank crews delighted in blowing up trains as they passed. For sheer spectacle, it is hard to beat an exploding locomotive and a long line of rail cars thundering off the tracks into wreckage and ruin. Nothing seemed able to stop the Red Army spearheads as they drove east towards Kalach. They came so fast that the panicked Germans made them a gift of the precious fuel dumps. The icy mists and snow were working for the Red Army as Richthofen’s reconnaissance aircraft were kept grounded. He recorded in his diary then, ‘Once again the Russians have masterfully exploited a bad weather situation. Rain, snow, ice and fog are preventing any action by the Luftwaffe at the Don.’3

  Generalleutnant Karl Strecher’s XI Corps with three divisions (44th, 376th, 384th Infantry) found itself attempting to disengage while being strongly assailed by Soviet 65th Army in its front even as it was struck in the rear by the 21st Army’s 3rd Cavalry Corps. The 44th Hoch- und Deutschmeister Division, Seydlitz’s old division of tough Austrians, led the way to the bridges over the Don that would unite them with the rest of 6th Army, wiping out the flank regiment of the enemy’s cavalry corps. It was slow going because of a fuel shortage afflicting the entire army. They still had their horses, though, and that meant their artillery and wounded came out with them. Luckily they had been bypassed by the Soviet tank corps heading for Kalach. But the cavalry hung on to the German flank, striking suddenly and without warning out of the snow, while masses of infantry from 65th Army pressed hard on their heels. One officer opined it was like the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the last time
German soldiers were so threatened by cavalry in the open field. His companion replied, ‘No, Heinz, Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow in 1812 comes closer. Pray God we do not find our Beresina.’4

  The Soviet attack had hit the 376th Division which had already been reduced to barely 4,200 men. Being farthest west it fought as the rearguard and quickly began to come apart. Its survivors, accompanied by terrified Romanian stragglers fleeing eastward, merged with the more resolute Austrians who pressed on through the blowing snow.

  MAP №7 OPERATION URANUS

  Stalingrad, 1 November 1942

  Chuikov had only been told of the offensive a few days before. For him it must have lifted an enormous burden. ‘We all clambered out of our dugouts to listen for the sounds of our counter-attack. It wasn’t possible — it was too far north.’ one soldier wrote later.5 It was not long before Chuikov’s scouts were reporting that the Germans were breaking contact all along the fighting lines, slipping away like quicksilver disappearing through a crack in the floor.

  Along with the scouts came the snipers desperate not to let their prey out of their sights. Those unwary enough to rush too far forward were dropped by a single sniper who seemed to be covering the German withdrawal from the area of the Barrikady Factory.

  Chuikov quickly linked up his isolated elements and pushed them forward to keep after the Germans. In a matter of minutes, his men were passing the famous factories and other buildings that had become the graves of countless Russians and Germans, past ground over which the armies had shoved and pushed against each for the gain of blood-soaked yards. Only the cold had smothered the stench of countless rotting bodies as the snow blanketed their remains and softened the broken outlines of the city’s buildings. By day’s end they were on the outskirts of the city where the Germans had abandoned an endless number of derelict vehicles, tanks, guns, and every other assorted piece of equipment armies possess.